Chlorine chemistry sustains

Food

Helps keep our food safe

Chlorine chemistry in the form of bleach solutions provides an effective way to help make restaurant and home kitchens safe for food preparation by destroying foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella and E. coli. But even before food gets to the kitchen, crop protectants produced using chlorine chemistry help control pests so crops can thrive.

Chlorine In The News

High-touch hospital surfaces such as doorknobs and faucet handles “are the secret network germs use to spread infections in hospitals. A new coating for stainless steel could stop them in their tracks,” suggests a new study.

Avoiding detection by thermal cameras, known as infrared stealth, is vital for the military. Yet, effectively hiding targets is a major challenge, since neither camouflage nor darkness can hide heat-releasing objects from thermal cameras. Kevlar® – made using chlorine chemistry – has been used in a strong, lightweight and foldable cloak that can make objects invisible to infrared cameras.

A new, highly conductive nanomaterial has been developed by a team at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) Department of Mechanical Engineering. The novel nanostructure, made by inserting carbon nanotubes and graphene into a titanium dioxide (TiO2), composite nanofiber, results in “superb conductivity.”

Purdue University researchers have developed an innovative method to detoxify water – using chlorine and UV radiation – offering new hope for water-stressed areas and helping enable greater reuse of wastewater.

The chlorine-based antibacterial compound, triclosan, has potential to combat life-threatening infections in people with diseases such as cystic fibrosis when combined with a tobramycin, an antibiotic, according to a paper in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (June 2018).

Hypochlorous acid, the active ingredient in chlorine bleach is the main ingredient in a toxic cocktail produced by the human immune system to destroy bacteria, according to a new study by researchers from two German universities, published in eLife journal.

PVC is used in a prize-winning head and neck support system for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a rare group of degenerative neurological diseases that affect the brain and spinal cord.